From its Supreme Court at the Nation's Capital down through its
inferior auxiliaries in the districts of all the States and
Territories, and in each State and Territory on down through their
Supreme Courts with their auxiliaries, and still on down through the
county, corporate and justices' courts in the counties and cities,
there is no cause of action, civil or criminal, possessed by any
party--individual or corporate--but there is a well-defined and easily
accessible remedy in original, appellate, and final jurisdiction; so
simple that the young lawyer just entering upon practice can, without
hesitation, file his complaint in the proper direction; when once
filed, though it may proceed to that of last resort--the Federal
Supreme Court--there is no confusion or conflict between the judges,
marshals, sheriffs, or constables, county, State, or Federal. But
when these legal authorities have exhausted their power to suppress
the lawless and make their call upon the executive of the nation to
protect the lives and property of the law-abiding (their dearest
and most sacred rights), neither the President nor the Governor,
the Marshal nor the Sheriff, the officer commanding the Federal
troops nor the officer commanding the State troops have any rules of
law for their mutual and common guidance and government; too often
local passion and political prejudice blind a just conception in
otherwise good men and endanger the public safety. The Army (and its
supplement--the Navy) being the only unimproved inheritance left us
from Great Britain.
This Organization and Administration for the British Army was
developed during the four of five centuries preceding our Revolution,
for the purpose of maintaining the alleged God-given right of
dynasties to rule the people without "The consent of the governed," to
support large royal families, a large line of nobility with attendant
trains, entailed estates, a numerous line of army officers--the latter
supplanting the knights errant--who together constituted the ruling
classes, distinguished from tradespeople and toilers as were the
patricians of Rome from plebeians.
Earlier the armies were raised by the knights and barons; the
officers from sons of the nobility who were admitted to the pomp and
circumstance of regal courts; the men from the lowest class (often
foreign mercenaries) hardly any of whom could read, or had any
conception of individual, much less political rights, just emerging
from barbarism and trained for wars where plunder was the main
incentive to courage in battle.
These were men to be governed by fear alone, and not by the love of
order and personal interest in its maintenance as Americans now govern
themselves. With such people, rigid personal government and rules of
discipline were necessary and accepted; with Americans, they are not
only unnecessary, but abhorrent.